This book analyses the key issues affecting same-sex families in Ireland and beyond today: marriage; formalised and non-formalised same-sex relationships outside of marriage; parental rights for same-sex couples with donor-conceived or surrogate-born children; and the protections afforded to same-sex families under European human rights law.It critically examines the Irish and Australian citizen-led approaches to achieving marriage equality, which made Ireland and ...

The adoption of the Canadian Constitution Act in 1982, with its embedded Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ushered in an era of unprecedented judicial influence on Canada's public policy. The Courts, the Charter, and the Schools examines how the Constitution Act has affected educational policy during the first twenty-five years of the Charter by analyzing landmark rulings handed down from appellate courts and the Supreme Court.The contributors consider the ...

Equality and Discrimination Law in Australia: An Introduction explores four decades of anti-discrimination laws in Australia. Beth Gaze and Belinda Smith argue that effective laws protecting against and deterring discrimination are vital for a fair future, and emphasise the theoretical and social contexts that underpin this area of the law. The text is divided into three sections: the first addresses the social and conceptual context, history and framework of anti-discrimination laws; the ...

What range of possibilities might appear on the horizon to a young woman today as she contemplates her future compared to those envisioned by a young woman 150 years ago? And how would her daily life be different? The degree of change in women's lives in Canada over the last 150 years is staggering, and much is the result of the fight for greater equality. How did this change take place? Establishing equality as a fact of daily life has been a protracted struggle, and one that remains far f...

The Family in Law provides a jurisprudential analysis of current family law, connecting doctrinal discourse with sociological, historical and economic analyses of the institution of family. The law's focus on the nuclear family as the default model is central to the book's discourse, which contains in-depth discussions of the key areas of family law - marriage, divorce, children and property matters. Written for Australian legal actors - whether students, academics or professionals - reade...

In the last half-century, the Supreme Court of Canada has undergone major upheaval. The most drastic change occurred with the adoption of the Charter of Rights in 1982, which substantially increased the Court's role in resolving controversial political and social issues. The Transformation of the Supreme Court of Canada examines the impact of institutional changes on the proceedings and decisions of the Court from 1970 to 2003.The first book on the Supreme Court to incorpo...

Countries that now contemplate constitutional reform often grapple with the question of whether to constitutionalise social rights. This book presents an argument for why, under the right conditions, doing so can be a good way to advance social justice. In making such a case, the author considers the nature of the social minimum, the role of courts among other institutions, the empirical record of judicial impact, and the role of constitutional text. He argues, however, that when enforcing...

This book provides a stimulating, carefully planned introduction to the key issues and debates within family law from some of the leading authorities within their field. It is designed both as a self standing book focusing on the key issues in the subject, and as a supplement to more detailed textbooks on the subject. It is essential reading for anybody studying or practising in the field of family law.Each chapter is concerned with one of the main areas of family law (such as adop...

The third edition of this work on family law, comprising text, cases and materials, provides not only an explication of legal principle but also explores, primarily from a feminist perspective, some of the assumptions about, and constructions of, gender, sexual orientation, class and culture that underlie the law. It examines the ideology of the family and, in particular, the role of the law in contributing to and reproducing that ideology. Structured around the themes of equality, welfare...

The Cambridge Companion to Public Law examines key themes, debates and issues in contemporary public law. The book identifies and draws out five key themes: the notions of government and the state; the place of the state and public law in the world at large; relationships between institutions and officials within the state; the legitimacy of institutions; and the identity and value of public law in relation to politics. The book also presents a contemporary examination, taking account of t...

Expertly drawing on international examples and existing literature, Penal Populism closes a gap in the field of criminology. In this fascinating expose of current crime policy John Pratt examines the role played by penal populism on trends in contemporary penal policy.Penal populism is associated with the public's decline of deference to the criminal justice establishment amidst alarm that crime is out of control. Pratt argues that new media technology is helping to spread...

Janet McLean explores how the common law has personified the state and how those personifications affect and reflect the state's relationship to bureaucracy, sovereignty and civil society, the development of public law norms, the expansion and contraction of the public sphere with nationalization and privatization, state responsibility and human rights. Treating legal thought as a variety of political thought, she discusses writers such as Austin, Maitland, Dicey, Laski, Robson, Hart, Grif...